How To Make Nourishing Beef Bone Broth

Learning how to make nourishing beef bone broth is easier than you think. Homemade bone broth has a depth of flavor that you won’t find in broth from the grocery store, and it will take your recipes that call for broth up a notch for sure. You can keep broth in the refrigerator for about a week, or it can be frozen or canned.

Prep Time 10

Cook Time 1

Total Time 1 10

Serving Size quarts

Ingredients

2 to 3 pounds beef bones
1 large onion coarsely chopped
6 cloves garlic
¼ cup apple cider vinegar
2 Tbl dried rosemary
2 Tbl dried oregano
2 Tbl dried thyme
2 Tbl fine sea salt
10 Black peppercorns
3 bay leaves
Other veggie scraps like carrots and celery (optional)

Instructions

Place bones onto a baking sheet and roast in a 350 degree oven for 1 to 2 hours until brown and caramelized. If you are using bones leftover from cooking you can skip this step.
To a large stockpot, slow cooker, roaster or instant pot add the roasted bones, herbs, veggie scraps, salt, pepper, vinegar and water.
Fill the pot with water, and bring to a low boil over medium heat.
Cover and simmer for a few hours or up to several days. You may need to add water occasionally if you simmer it for a long time.
Strain off the broth using fine cheesecloth and a colander.
Refrigerate for up to a week, or freeze in freezer safe containers for up to a year.

Pressure Canning Beef Bone Broth

Ladle hot broth into pint or quart jars, and cover with lids and rings.
Place 1-2 quarts of water in your pressure canner, place it on your stove and turn your burner on high. Place jars of meat into the canner and put the lid on, being sure to lock it into place. You can refer to your canner manual for detail instructions related to your canner.
Allow the canner to continue to heat until a steady stream of steam is coming out of the vents. (See video below)
Place pressure gauge or applicable device over steam vent.
When you reach 10 pounds pressure, lower the heat so that the pressure is maintained. You don’t want it to go too far above or below the desired pressure for best results. On my canner, it has a little pressure regulator that jiggles, so when it is put on the canner for 10 pounds of pressure, it is supposed to jiggle 4-5 times per minute. That is how I know it is at 10 pounds of pressure. This is very simple, but will vary from canner to canner, so please refer to your canner instructions for more details.
Process pints for 20 minutes and quarts for 25 minutes at 10 pounds pressure.
At the end of the processing time, simply turn off the heat and let the canner cool down slowly.
Once the canner is completely cooled, remove the lid and using the jar lifter, remove the jars and place them on a towel on your counter to cool.
Allow the jars to fully cool to room temperature. You will hear the satisfying “pop” of the seals as the jars cool. This means you’ve been successful!

Check The Seals

Once the jars are completely cooled, check to make sure they all have a good seal. To do this, you’ll want to make sure that the lid on each jar is indented downwards, and when you press on the center of the lid, it doesn’t move. If you use the For Jars lids, you won’t have any trouble with jars sealing. If you have a jar that doesn’t seal, you can put it into the refrigerator and use it within a week. Or you can replace the lid and re-process it in the canner. Sometimes a lid won’t seal if there is a small crack on the rim of the jar, or if a piece of salt or food particle wasn’t cleaned off the jar rim properly.
Wipe down your jars and put them on your pantry shelf to be enjoyed for a long time to come.

Video

Notes

Keep leftover veggie scraps in a bag in your freezer to add whenever you’re making broth. You can keep the peels and ends from the veggies, because you’re going to strain them off the broth in the end anyway. That way you’ll have zero waste on your veggies and your meat when you make broth.
If freezing your broth, be sure to use a freezer safe container and leave room at the top of the container for the broth to expand as it freezes.
Roast the bones in a 350 degree oven for 1 to 2 hours before adding them to the broth pot. This will caramelize them and give the broth the best flavor.